Myles Lennon, "Subjects of the Sun: Solar Energy in the Shadows of Racial Capitalism" (Duke UP, 2025)

This book is a sociological study of knowledge and knowers and explores the production and perceived value of 'yogic knowledge', how distinction is curated, and how access to this knowledge is gained. The book focuses on the organization Shanti Mandir (SM) in India, a new religious movement, which was founded in 1987 by Swami Nityananda Saraswati. By identifying the structuring forces of the guru's discourse, and focusing on the marketing strategies and subsequent exchanges of capital and affective emotions, this monograph documents what the legitimate yogic identity promoted by SM is within the context of the transglobal yoga industry. A highly original and incisive portrait of an Indian devotional community with strong transnational connections, this book will be of interest to researchers studying South Asian Studies, Religious Studies, Indian religion and yoga. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

5 Juni 32min

The Collective Dream: Egyptians Longing For A Better Life (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) links two seminal moments in Egypt’s history – the Revolution of 25th January 2011 and the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser – through various cultural manifestations. It conceives the concept of “collective dreaming” to map out the subliminal feeling that runs deep through experiences of socially transformative moments. Sarah Nagaty has extensively studied the structure of feelings that encompasses the experiences not only of activist minorities but the broader mass of revolutionary movements. In certain historical moments, hopes and aspirations bind together millions of people from all walks of life: students, workers, farmers, and middle-class professionals. Nagaty calls this phenomenon the “collective dream”, something which has been carried through generations of Egyptians. In this episode, Ibrahim Fawzy sat down with Sarah Nagaty to discuss the conceptual roots of the collective dream and the overlooked histories of Nubian displacement during the construction of the High Dam. They also explored how thinkers like Raymond Williams and Lauren Berlant shaped Nagaty’s method of reading revolutionary time and cultural memory, as well as how vernacular poetry, reportage, and graffiti served as vital archival traces of collective feeling. Ibrahim Fawzy is a literary translator and writer based in Boston. His interests include translation studies, Arabic literature, ecocriticism, disability studies, and migration literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

4 Juni 34min

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with historian Beth Linker, Samuel H. Preston Endowed Term Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of the History and Sociology of Science, about her recent book, Slouch: Postural Panic in Modern America (Princeton University Press, 2024). Slouch examines the history of conceptions of “bad posture” as they arose over the course of the 20th century. The book is a beautiful example of taking a perhaps seemingly small topic and showing how it connects to many, both surprising and well-known, themes in history. The pair also discuss a few of the potential projects Linker may be turning to next, all of which sound fascinating. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

3 Juni 1h 19min

What do Russians really want? Do they want authoritarianism and are they prepared to go along with a war of conquest and destruction? Or do they want something else? A landmark contribution to the field, Morris is the only social researcher to have carried out fieldwork in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, engaging with communities in Moscow, regional cities, as well as rural areas to bring perspectives on Russian everyday lives that are now entirely inaccessible to the West. Everyday Politics in Russia: From Resentment to Resistance (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) uses the lens of micropolitics, defined not as politics in miniature but instead as taking seriously the political content of people's normal lives revealed in their practices, interactions and discussions. Based on decades-long interactions with people from a diverse cross-section of society in Russia – from security service officers to factory workers, from unemployed young men to citizen journalists and activists, this is the most comprehensive insight to date into the complexity of Russian attitudes toward war, their government and the post-1991 political trajectory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

3 Juni 1h 4min

Burdens of Belonging: Race in an Unequal Nation By Jessica Vasquez-Tokos, Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon W.E.B. Du Bois famously pondered a question he felt society was asking of him as a Black man in America: “How does it feel to be a problem?” Jessica Vasquez-Tokos uses this question to examine how communities of color are constructed as “problems,” and the numerous ramifications this has for their life trajectories. Uncovering how various members of racial groups understand and react to what their racial status means for inclusion in, or exclusion from, the nation, Burdens of Belonging examines the historical underpinnings of the racial-colonial hierarchy, the influence this hierarchy has on lived experience, and how racialized life experience influences the feelings, perspectives and goals of people of color.Burdens of Belonging is based on interviews with people in Oregon from various racial groups, and brings multiple racial groups’ opinions together to weigh in on the ways in which race contours national belonging and affects sense of self, everyday life and wellness, and aspirations for the future. This book highlights the value of inquiring how people from various racial backgrounds perceive their fit in the nation and reveals how race matters to belonging in multifaceted ways.Filling a gap in research on the everyday effects of accumulated racial disadvantage, Burdens of Belonging brings to the fore an analysis of how racial inequality, settler colonialism, and race relations penetrate multiple layers of social life and become etched into bodies and futures. Michael L. Rosino, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Molloy University Recent Books: Democracy is Awkward: Grappling with Racism inside Grassroots Political Organizing (UNC Press) 30% off with code: 01UNCP30 Debating the Drug War: Race, Politics, and the Media (Routledge) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

2 Juni 31min

A lively story of death, What to Expect When You're Dead: An Ancient Tour of Death and the Afterlife (Princeton University Press, 2025) by Dr. Robert Garland explores the fascinating death-related beliefs and practices of a wide range of ancient cultures and traditions—Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Hindu, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Etruscan, Greek, Roman, Early Christian, and Islamic. By drawing on the latest scholarship on ancient archaeology, art, literature, and funerary inscriptions, Dr. Garland invites readers to put themselves in the sandals of ancient peoples and to imagine their mental state moment by moment as they sought—in ways that turn out to be remarkably similar to ours—to assist the dead on their journey to the next world and to understand life’s greatest mystery.What to Expect When You’re Dead chronicles the ways ancient peoples answered questions such as: How to achieve a good death and afterlife? What’s the best way to dispose of a body? Do the dead face a postmortem judgement—and where do they end up? Do the dead have bodies in the afterlife—and can they eat, drink, and have sex? And what can the living do to stay on good terms with the nonliving?Filled with intriguing stories and frequent humor, What to Expect When You’re Dead will be a morbidly delicious treat for every reader alive. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

2 Juni 49min

The Loyalty Trap: Conflicting Loyalties of Civil Servants Under Increasing Autocracy (Columbia University Press, 2025) explores how civil servants navigated competing pressures and duties amid the chaos of the first Trump administration, drawing on in-depth interviews with senior officials in the most contested agencies over the course of a tumultuous term. A revealing investigation that is now more relevant than ever. Jaime Kucinskas is Associate Professor of the Department of Sociology at Hamilton College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

1 Juni 26min

Contemporary veterans belong to an exclusive American group. Celebrated by most of the country, they are nevertheless often poorly understood by the same people who applaud their service. Following the introduction of an all-volunteer force after the war in Vietnam, only a tiny fraction of Americans now join the armed services, making the contemporary soldier, and the veteran by extension, increasingly less representative of mainstream society. Veterans have come to comprise their own distinct tribe--modern praetorians, permanently set apart from society by what they have seen and experienced. In an engrossing narrative that considers the military, economic, political, and social developments affecting military service after Vietnam, Michael D. Gambone investigates how successive generations have intentionally shaped their identity as veterans. The New Praetorians: American Veterans, Society, and Service from Vietnam to the Forever War (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021) also highlights the impact of their homecoming, the range of educational opportunities open to veterans, the health care challenges they face, and the unique experiences of minority and women veterans. This groundbreaking study illustrates an important and often neglected group that is key to our understanding of American social history and civil-military affairs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

31 Maj 47min